After finishing my earlier posting (see here), about Hopkinsville and Budd Hopkins having temporal links for August 21st, a postscript presented itself about other people links and "coincidences," regarding that situation.
"Hopkinsville hobgoblin" attacks a member of the Sutton family, 1955.
Budd Hopkins during his early lectures, as in this one from 1967, began to develop the concept of "missing time" and "alien abductions" due to the "intruders."
"Hopkinsville," as the tagging label grew to be known, is all about the Kelly-Hopkinsville "hobgoblins," reported in 1955.
Two of the most mentioned investigators linked to that incident are (1) J. Allen Hynek (May 1, 1910 - April 27, 1986), ufologist who developed the close encounter scale and consulted on the making of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (released on November 16, 1977), and (2) Isabel Davis, ufologist who authored Close Encounters of Kelly and Others of 1955 (1978).
Davis was from New York City, and investigated the Kelly-Hopkinsville event a year after it happened. Hynek, living in the Chicago area, examined the details of the case by talking to Davis and one other investigator. Who was that person and how did Hynek and Davis learn the most about the Kelly incident? They received their most credible firsthand data from an individual they would call a friend years later: Andrew "Bud" Ledwith, an announcer-engineer at a Hopkinsville radio station.
Yes, another Bud.
Bud Ledwith was there first. On August 22, 1955, it was Andrew "Bud" Ledwith of WHOP radio who interviewed the seven adult witnesses in two different groups. He judged their accounts as consistent, especially in their descriptions of the strange glowing beings. It is Bud Ledwith's drawings that are most often reworked and used when talking about the Kelly creatures.
Bud Ledwith's sketches were made under the instructions of the eyewitnesses.
Now here is the strange part. Years later, in 1977, I met Bud Ledwith, face-to-face. He was working as the host of a small Boston-area radio station talk show. He invited me to come into his studio so he could interview me about the April 21-22, 1977, sightings of the Dover Demon. Only after I was there, after we began to talk, did I discover that he was the same Bud Ledwith who was in Hopkinsville in 1955.
What a strange coincidence, I thought. The Dover Demon was so very bizarre in description, I had already researched seemingly similar isolated historical cases of small creatures. Naturally, I had compared the Dover Demon with the Kelly hobgoblins. And then I find I stumble into the primary investigator in that case? It all seemed rather unbelievable.
Walt Webb, then the Assistant Director of the Hayden Planetarium at Boston's Science Museum, would write, in his special report, about this overlap that all of us were discussing back then: "Loren was the first to note some resemblance between the Dover entity and the famous Kelly, Kentucky, 'little men' incident of 1955," (see page 55, in Mysterious America).
So, there I found myself, sitting with Bud Ledwith, 22 years after he interviewed the Kentucky creature witnesses. I was talking about the bright orange Dover Demon, and then we discussed the silvery Kelly creatures. It all seemed a little weird at the time, and still does today.
To think now of the links between Budd Hopkins/Hopkinsville, and Bud Ledwith/Hopkinsville, in the context of Bud, me, the Dover Demon, and Budd, is beyond strange.
I met Bud Ledwith in April 1977, because of the Dover Demon, and met Budd Hopkins for the first time at the Mass UFO Show/Mass Monster Mash in 2008. I had spoken at the previous Mass Monster Mash, presenting a 30th Year Anniversary Dover Demon PowerPoint presentation in 2007.
Digging a bit, the links from Isabel Davis, through Bud Ledwith and Hopkinsville, to Budd Hopkins are rather direct, historically. It all has ties to the old CSI.
The Civilian Saucer Intelligence (CSI) was an independent unidentified flying object research group founded in New York City in 1954. It was initially called Civilian Saucer Intelligence New York, but the "New York" was quickly dropped from their name.
Jerome Clark writes, "Though its membership was small, what the organization lacked in quantity it made up in quality of its personnel," (Clark, Jerome, The UFO Encyclopedia: 2nd Edition; Volume 1, A-K; Omnigraphics, Inc, 1998, page 188). CSI's core personnel were Ted Bloecher, Isabel Davis, and Alexander Mebane.
Though the group never formally disbanded, CSI was defunct by 1959. However, Davis and Bloecher were active in UFO research into the 1980s, Davis as a NICAP associate. Notably, Bloecher investigated an early 1970s UFO sighting made by young New York City painter, Budd Hopkins; in later years, Hopkins would become a key figure in the alien abduction scene.
I truly am not sure what any of it means, but it is worth a little Fortean pondering.
Kelly-Hopkinsville hobgoblin (1955)
Dover Demon (April 1977)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (November 1977)
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Gremlins (1984); Gremlins 2 (1990)
9 comments:
You know, since the movie Close Encounter has been brought up, I learned through Robbie Graham's Silver Screen Saucers blog that Spielberg's ET was originally going to be a horror flick, and that it was going to be inspired in the Hopkinsville case.
So that made me speculate that since Spielberg was interested in the Hopkinsville goblins, that perhaps there were later used as the inspiration for another of his most popular movies: Gremlins.
RPJ's attempt to add an image from the Gremlins failed, so I updated this posting with various cinema imagery linked to the thoughts of this postscript.
Enjoy.
As noted in the previous comment on the post below about Mac Tonnies.
I was born on Aug. 22nd.
Also - Mac Tonnies wrote an excellent book on Mars titled: AFTER THE MARTIAN APOCALYPSE.
This book studies the "face on Mars" images taken initially by the Viking 1 Orbiter.
The Viking 1 Orbiter launched on Aug 20th 1975
That’s the same day Mac was born.
It seems odd that 22 and 2 occur multiple times:
Hopkinsville sighting in 1955, ending August 22nd.
Dover Demon sighting ending on April 22nd of 1977.
1977 and 1955 having a difference of 22. Lastly, 22, 55, and 77 are all divisible by 11.
Is there any Fortean significance to the number 11?
Yes, this piece abounds with 22s, 55s, 77s, and thus 11s, behind the scenes. I wanted to wait for someone to notice. Thank you.
Even Close Encounters of the Third Kind coming out in 1977, a half a year after the Dover Demon case, seemed rather strange, temporally.
Twilight language and elevens go hand-in-hand, of course.
While most of the world seems to know this as the "Hopkinsville Goblins", everyone in the area calls them the Kelly Little Green Men (though no witnesses ever described them as green). They even have a festival in Kelly now during the month of August (I think it will be on the 18th this year?).
Yes the Kelly Festival starts on the evening of Aug 18th this year and will last all day on the 19th. If you can find a copy of "Entertainment Weekly" the week of December 9th issue you will find a nine page write up of Spielberg where he states that he did base E.T. on the Kelly/Hopkinsville Green Men. Which is absolutely great!
I'm from Hopkinsville, coincidentally, and had never heard of the Kelly aliens. I now live in West Virginia, where the stories of Point Pleasant's Mothman are well-known, some sightings even here, near where I live in Dunbar, W.V., not to mention the Flatwoods Monster in Flatwoods, WV. And now you're telling me Dover has similar stories? They're everywhere! Another 'mystery' is the presence of all the ancient mounds that can be found near all these places, as well. I wonder if there's any connection there?
Hopkinsville, KY will be the point of greatest eclipse in August 2017. Tourism $ to the area.
http://www.eclipseville.com/
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